A man jailed for murdering his estranged wife 20 years ago who still refuses to say where he hid her body is not safe to be released from prison, the Parole Board has said.
Glyn Razzell killed his wife, Linda, in 2002 but at a public Parole Board hearing last month insisted she was still alive and one of the reasons he wanted to be freed was to find her and prove she had framed him.
The Parole Board concluded Razzell was still trying to control the narrative surrounding his detention and said it had taken into account the so-called Helen’s Law, which makes it harder for prisoners to be released if they do not disclose the whereabouts of a victim’s body.
It said it was likely he committed abusive, threatening and violent behaviour towards Linda Razzell before the murder. The Parole Board also expressed concerns about his conduct in prison towards female professionals, which showed a continuing risk.
A summary of the decision published on Tuesday said: “The panel considered ‘Helen’s Law’ with great care. The panel did not know how or where the victim’s remains were disposed of, and it believed that Mr Razzell had information about this. The panel took into account Mr Razzell’s non-disclosure and the reason, in its view, he had failed to disclose information.”
It continued: “Mr Razzell had not disclosed information because he continues to deny killing the victim, does not want to lose his desired status of being a ‘wrongly convicted murderer’ and he has been attempting ‘self-preservation’ to keep himself ‘psychologically intact’ by keeping control of the narrative.”
The panel said there was “ample evidence that Mr Razzell is capable of wholesale deceit” and “his wilful and deliberate withholding of the relevant information indicates that he continues to be a risk”.
It said risk factors that made it more likely he would reoffend if he was released included his difficulties in managing extreme emotions. The murder had been characterised by “significant planning, and boundless deception”, leading the panel to decide that professionals might not be able to rely on his accounts of his behaviour in the community if he were to be released.
Razzell was found guilty in 2003 of the murder of his wife, who was 41 when she went missing from the market town of Highworth in Wiltshire the previous year, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
At the parole hearing – one of the first in the UK to be heard in public – Razzell, now 64, was asked repeatedly to say where Linda Razzell’s remains were so their children could bury them, but he claimed he had nothing to do with her death and his wife must have worked with someone to plant the splashes of her blood that were found in the boot of a car he had used.
He said: “It was placed there to incriminate me. It must have been with Linda’s involvement because it was fresh blood. I’m not victim-blaming her. I’m saying she was alive a week after she was supposed to be dead.”
